Veterans reflect 40 years after America's withdrawal from Vietnam War

Published: Sunday, May 26, 2013 at 03:58 PM.

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“I enjoyed my time with the police department, I really did,” Lynch said.

He’s open about his problems with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that have presented themselves more in recent years than they did immediately after his return from Vietnam. Lynch said if he’s approached from behind and startled, he fights the urge to drop to the ground to protect himself.

Only a couple of years ago, he jumped from his bed one night while dreaming, convinced he was in a foxhole that was about to be overrun. That night, Lynch gave himself a terrible gash when he collided with a nightstand.

Again, he manages to take it all in stride.

“You didn’t know going to sleep could be so dangerous, did you?” he quipped.

Lynch is being treated for PTSD at Durham VA Medical Center. He said the care he’s receiving is top-notch.

Despite all he experienced in Vietnam and the aftermath of that service that he continues to deal with, Lynch said he’s lucky. He’s lived a good life, he said.

The United States’ involvement in the war ended March 29, 1973, when the last American troops were withdrawn. This year marks the 40th anniversary of that withdrawal.

The war ended April 30, 1975, when South Vietnam fell to the North Vietnamese.

More than 58,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam. Determining the number of Vietnamese who died in the conflict is difficult. Estimates of those casualties total well over a million.

In all, more than 216,000 men and women from North Carolina served in the war. Of that number, more than 4,200 were wounded while 1,624 died.

Soldiers from a number of local municipalities died in Vietnam. That number includes:

■ 23 from Burlington;

■ Eight from Graham;

■ Five from Mebane;

■ Three from Gibsonville;

■ Two from Yanceyville;

■ One from Swepsonville.

On Memorial Day, a trio of local former soldiers share remembrances of their time in Vietnam.

'I’m proud to have gone.' But retired police captain Steve Lynch found little to like about Vietnam

The outbuilding behind Steve Lynch’s house has a sign on its front that reads: “Lynch Lodge.” It’s sort of a deluxe man cave.

There’s a couch inside, and plenty of chairs. The building is wired. There’s an air conditioner hanging in a window on one end. On the walls are pictures of Lynch — who retired in 1999 as a captain with the Burlington Police Department — standing alongside former President Bill Clinton and another with him flanking former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Lynch, 63, and his wife, Betsy, have a monthly get-together there in the building where he and about 30 of his friends gather for breakfast.

In addition to everything else the structure contains, a good portion is filled with reminders of Lynch’s year in Vietnam. He was a member of the Army’s 101st Airbone, an infantry division nicknamed “The Screaming Eagles,” and saw lots of combat from 1969 through 1970.

Showcased in Lynch’s building is everything from his dress uniform and combat fatigues to his boots and a replica of an M-16, the gun Lynch carried in Vietnam. There’s a model of a Huey helicopter, the aircraft that Lynch rode into combat. His copy of the New Testament that accompanied him through many a battle is displayed.

Lynch said he’s not bitter about his time in Vietnam, but said that even more than 40 years later, he’s still not sure what he and his companions were fighting for.

“I don’t know what good we did,” Lynch said. “I felt the country called and I complied.”

Lynch graduated from Eastern Alamance High School in 1967, then took a job working in the FBI’s fingerprint lab in Washington, D.C., just down the street from the White House.

“I was just a kid,” Lynch said. “I think I’d been to Carolina Beach maybe twice, then, all of a sudden, I’m working on Pennsylvania Avenue.”

He worked for the FBI (a note from J. Edgar Hoover informing him of a raise is among the framed memorabilia in his outbuilding) about two years, then quit and returned to Alamance County.

Shortly thereafter, as Lynch puts it, he got a letter from President Johnson. It was his draft notice. Uncle Sam wanted him.

Lynch went through boot camp at Fort Bragg, then completed advanced infantry training at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Ala. Three months after going into the Army, Lynch found himself in Vietnam. He was 19.

Lynch was helicoptered to a company outside the city of Hue (pronounced “Way”), not far from the demilitarized zone — the dividing line between North and South Vietnam. Upon his arrival, the reception from his fellow infantrymen was … well, not the best.

“You were ostracized,” Lynch said. “Until you’d been through a firefight, it was like you didn’t exist.”

It didn’t take long for that to happen. Lynch was involved in combat almost from the get-go. He said the young soldier who flew beside him on the long flight to Vietnam was killed his first day there. On Lynch’s second day in-country, he helped carry a corpse to a landing zone to be helicoptered out.

“It’s a pretty life-changing experience,” Lynch said.

All these years later, Lynch still has a hard time describing the tasks he and his comrades were asked to complete.

“I wish I knew what we were supposed to be doing,” he said, managing a chuckle.

Infantry soldiers are known as “grunts,” the word coming from the jobs they do.

“We’d get up in the morning and start humping,” Lynch said of the hikes that are a part of the day-to-day existence of those in the infantry. “Lots of times, it wouldn’t be long before we’d be engaged in a firefight.”

At the conclusion of the day’s fighting, the dead and wounded would be choppered out. Dusk would usually by then be approaching. Lynch and his comrades would set up a night defensive perimeter. That involved the placement of trip wires and Claymore mines — directional anti-personnel mines that can be set off remotely.

Platoon members would form a big circle with the intention of protecting themselves from anyone who came calling after dark. Lynch said they’d split the night watch. If anyone broached a trip wire after dark, it was the responsibility of the person on watch to determine if a mine should be set off.

“Your biggest concern was just staying alive,” Lynch said.

He manages to laugh about some of what he went through. Lynch said his nickname was “The Preacher” because of the New Testament he carried and his habit of reading aloud a bit of scripture if platoon members anticipated a fight.

In his backyard building, Lynch has framed a painting that he said depicts well what he went through. It’s a scene that illustrates Huey helicopters trying to land in the middle of a firefight in Vietnam. Napalm is burning in the distance and a medic is treating one wounded soldier while others scour the treeline for enemy. A Claymore mine is pictured in the foreground.

“I describe that as my living room for a year,” Lynch said.

A moment later, asked about his habit of reading from his New Testament while soldiering, Lynch pointed to the painting and said, “Everybody right there is a Christian, I promise you that.”

Lynch carried a pair of barber clippers with him during his year in Vietnam. They’re also in his building and almost primitive — nothing electrical about them.

Lynch said because he carried the clippers he assumed the role of platoon barber. He said the amusing thing was that almost everyone in his platoon carried a tiny mirror. They’d watch carefully as Lynch trimmed their hair.

This action came from men who may not have bathed for weeks.

“They’d say, ‘Take a little more off right here,’ ” Lynch said, motioning to the side of his head. “It’s funny, there wasn’t a female within a million miles, but they were worried about how they looked.”

Lynch said that while he appreciated the bonds he developed with those with whom he served, he found almost nothing about Vietnam pleasurable. He and the others in his platoon spent weeks on end in the wild, sleeping on the ground. The monsoon season made things even more miserable.

“Jungle rot” was commonplace, brought on by weeks in the jungle and nowhere to bathe.

“Your feet would wither up,” Lynch recalled. “Leeches were a problem. There wasn’t any enjoyment connected with that place.”

Lynch said surviving in such conditions for an extended period makes an individual appreciate the little things in life. Even a trip to the bathroom is an ordeal when there are snipers about.

By the time he returned to the United States, Lynch packed only 120 pounds on his 6-foot-1 frame.

Lynch’s 1st sergeant during much of his tour in Vietnam was a grizzled Army veteran who’d served in both World War II and the Korean War. Despite the difference in their ages, he and Lynch bonded. The sergeant’s tour ended before Lynch’s and on his last day in-country, he presented Lynch his watch.

It’s there in Lynch’s collection of Vietnam artifacts.

Lynch returned to Alamance County in 1970, his year in Vietnam complete before he turned 21. He went to work for the Burlington Police Department not long after, spending much of his career as a detective and was over the years a key figure in many of the department’s bigger cases.

One of the department’s most prestigious honors is the Steve Lynch Detective of the Year Award.

“I enjoyed my time with the police department, I really did,” Lynch said.

He’s open about his problems with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that have presented themselves more in recent years than they did immediately after his return from Vietnam. Lynch said if he’s approached from behind and startled, he fights the urge to drop to the ground to protect himself.

Only a couple of years ago, he jumped from his bed one night while dreaming, convinced he was in a foxhole that was about to be overrun. That night, Lynch gave himself a terrible gash when he collided with a nightstand.

Again, he manages to take it all in stride.

“You didn’t know going to sleep could be so dangerous, did you?” he quipped.

Lynch is being treated for PTSD at Durham VA Medical Center. He said the care he’s receiving is top-notch.

Despite all he experienced in Vietnam and the aftermath of that service that he continues to deal with, Lynch said he’s lucky. He’s lived a good life, he said.

“I’m proud to have gone,” Lynch said.

The domino theory never materialized

Don Morrison arrived in Vietnam in January 1971, about six months before the U.S. announced plans to gradually withdraw from the war.

“When I got there, things were still pretty hot,” Morrison said.

The intensity of combat eased quite a bit, he said, once the U.S. let it be known it planned to turn the battle over to the South Vietnamese.

“Things cooled down considerably after that, which was fine with me,” Morrison said.

The North Vietnamese, Morrison said he and his fellow soldiers figured, were waiting for the U.S. to exit the war before turning up the heat on their South Vietnamese foes.

Morrison, 67, is a retired insurance agent who lives in Burlington. Until his knees got the best of him, he was an avid runner, putting away miles at a pace matched by few.

He graduated from Williams High School in 1963, then attended Elon College. In April 1968, not long after college graduation, Morrison was drafted.

Sometime during the course of basic training, Morrisson was informed he qualified for officer candidate school. He went to Vietnam as a 1st lieutenant and was promoted to captain about three months following his arrival.

Morrison was stationed south of Da Nang and lived in a compound built by the French in the 1950s when they were fighting there. Morrison said one of his major duties in Vietnam was to serve as an adviser to the South Vietnamese militia, which he describes as the equivalent of the Army National Guard.

“We did a lot of good stuff over there,” Morrison said. “We helped build water systems and culverts to make the lives of the villagers easier. We didn’t spend all our time patrolling for the enemy.”

He said those Vietnamese villagers were simple people who wanted little more than to be left alone. They didn’t have an interest in the huge war that was unfolding around them — their lives affected little regardless of the government in power.

“Looking back, it was another story of the U.S. backing a country we shouldn’t have backed,” Morrison said. “But we didn’t know that at the time.”

Morrison spent 11 months in Vietnam, his tour of duty ending in December 1971. He said he remembered watching the war’s end on television along with many Americans. The last American combat troops were pulled from the country in March 1973 — 40 years ago this spring.

South Vietnam fell to the North a little more than two years later.

“I thought the South would put up a better fight than they did,” Morrison said, though he admitted because of the corruption of the country, he probably shouldn’t have been surprised.

In the final days before South Vietnam fell to the North, anyone with ties to the U.S. was leaving the country by any means possible. There were numerous reports of South Vietnamese commanders deserting — leaving entire battalions without commanders.

Today, Morrison looks at the U.S.’s intervention in Vietnam in a different light. He noted the domino theory — the belief that if South Vietnam fell to the Communists all other countries in the region would do likewise — never materialized.

“It’s still basically Communist-run,” Morrison said of Vietnam. “They seem to be doing well.”

'Lots of politics, lots of politics'

Bennie Kidd grew up in Lynchburg, Va., and enrolled in college following high school graduation.

But Kidd, now 65 and the director of fund development and facilities management for Burlington’s Ralph Scott Group Homes, admitted his heart wasn’t into college.

“After two years in college, I missed a few grades and it wasn’t long before Uncle Sam caught up with me,” Kidd said.

He was drafted in 1969 and ended up spending the better part of a year as an Army sergeant in Vietnam’s central highlands. It was an area away from some of the country’s larger cities and more intense fighting to the south.

But the Ho Chi Minh Trail — which served as something of a roadway for North Vietnamese troops and weapons transport — crossed through the highlands, so Kidd and his comrades saw plenty of combat.

“Our main thing was ambushes and booby traps,” Kidd recalled. “We ran into several firefights.”

Kidd served most of his tour as an infantry squad leader. He said when it came to his enemies in Vietnam, they largely consists of two fighting bunches – the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army.

Kidd said if he had to fight one of the two, he much preferred the Viet Cong.

“They’d hit and run,” he said. “It was more guerrilla warfare.”

The North Vietnamese were more determined and more likely in the battle for the long haul, Kidd said.

“They were the hard-core bunch,” he said.

Kidd said he learned to admire the intelligence of the Vietnamese, even those he was fighting. He said you dared not leave any metal trash about — food cans, for instance — because the Viet Cong would turn the discards into improvised explosives.

“I learned to respect the Vietnamese people,” Kidd said. “They were smart people, but you never knew who you could trust.”

He said there was a tremendous difference in the reception he received when he returned home in November 1970 compared to the reception troops returning today from Afghanistan receive. Kidd said for a long while, he rarely told anyone he’d served in Vietnam.

He returned to college after the war and earned a degree in accounting. Kidd came to Alamance County with a job in finance with Star Food Products. He worked as executive director of the ARC of Alamance County before going to work for Ralph Scott Group Homes.

Kidd said he has only in recent years begun to embrace the role he played in fighting for his country. He noted he attended a welcome home rally for Vietnam veterans staged in March 2012 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Attendance was huge — between 50,000 and 60,000 people.

Kidd recently got a license plate for his car that denotes his status as a Vietnam War veteran and even recently purchased a ball cap commemorating the role he played in the fight for his country.

He said he watched the war play out after he’d returned to the United States — watching on television the withdrawal of the final American troops in March 1973 and the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese in April 1975.

He said he can’t help but feel the battle could have ended differently.

“There were lots of politics in that war, lots of politics,” he said.

Kidd paused before continuing, “It’s a case of would-a, should-a, could-a, I guess.”